54 



FORESTS, FOREST LANDS AND FOREST PRODUCTS. 



the trees may explain, in part or wholl}^ why masts are less abun- 

 dant. It would naturally be inferred that there would be a large 

 decrease in the productiveness of boxed trees, whose vitality, 

 measured by the rate of accretion between them and unboxed 

 trees, has been greatly impaired by the practiced manner of box- 

 ing. However, from a tabulated record of observations carried on 

 during several years there as yet appears no marked difference 

 between the productiveness of boxed and unboxed trees, similarly 

 situated. 



There are several important differences between the reproduc- 

 tive capacities of the loblolly and long-leaf pines, all of them to 

 the advantage of the former. The fertility of the long-leaf pine 

 is much less than that of the loblolly pine, its most frequent asso- 

 ciate. The loblolly pine bears cones at an earlier age, and usually 

 produces more seed, both perfect and imperfect ones, and the great 

 variety of soil on which the loblolly pines grow causes a slight 

 difference in the time of flowering of different trees, making this 

 pine less liable to have the entire prospect of a seed yield destroyed 

 by frosts, or by heavy rains during pollination. While this may 

 possibly explain why the loblolly pine has come up as a regrowth 

 over so much of the moister loam land it has affected the growth 

 of the pine barrens very little. 



The seed of the long-leaf pine are very large, one-third to one- 

 half an inch long, independent of the wing, while no other pine of 

 this region has seed over one-fourth an inch long. But there is a 

 much smaller proportion of abortive and otherwise imperfect seed 

 in a long-leaf pine cone than in the cone of the loblolly pine. 

 This would be decidedly to the advantage of the long-leaf pine in 

 seeding old fields, etc., were its seed not too heavy to be carried far 

 by the wind. They usually fall within fifty feet of the parent tree, 

 while the light-winged seed of the loblolly have been known to' 

 scatter thickly over fields from trees more than a quarter of a mile 

 distant; and single seed are reported to have been blown several 

 miles. And furthermore, as described more fully beyond, the seed 

 of the long-leaf pine are much more extensively destroyed by 

 hogs, fowls, squirrels, rats, etc. 



Another reason for the exclusively loblolly growth in fields may 



